Recycling Plays a Leading Role in the Second Dominican Republic Global Film Festival (DREFF)

Santo Domingo, September 7, 2012

This Saturday, September 8 at 4:00 pm in the auditórium of Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE), recycling will be the star of the Second Dominican Republic Global Film Festival (DREFF). Later on the same day, the Festival will present the documentaries Discover La Vega: Pride of My Land at 5:00 pm, and Waste Land at 7:00 pm.

Recycling in its multiple manifestations and positive environmental affects will be revealed in the workshop “Recyclart,” which will be realized in the gallery of FUNGLODE from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

The workshop will be led by Bertha Santana of Manos, Arte y Reciclaje (MAR) (Hands, Art and Recycling) and Moses Ros of Proyecto Gráfica (Graphic Project).

Imagine a lamp made out of plastic bottles, or your new favorite purse made out of paper. Recycling is about finding an alternative and transforming used materials into new objects, which would otherwise be thrown away. In many ways recycling has become a new means of expression for many artists, which have embraced it as a way to give something back to the environment, inspired by what they know how to do best. Join us for this workshop to learn how you can transform what would otherwise see as garbage, into new objects with an entirely different use than what you originally purchased them for.

Moses Ros-Suárez of Proyecto Gráfica is a public artist of Dominican descent living and working in New York City. His work includes sculpture, painting and printmaking. Currently Ros-Suárez combines printmaking and recycled material to create a new art from discarded resources.

Bertha Santana is a Dominican specializing in artistic recycling. She conducts community and company workshops.

Screenings of Discover La Vega: Pride of My Land and Waste Land

At 5:00 pm in the auditorium of FUNGLODE, DREFF will present the documentary Discover La Vega: Pride of My Land, directed by Máximo José Rodríguez and written by Dagoberto Tejada.

This documentary recreates the religious beliefs, folkloric manifestations, natural diversity, history and cuisine of the province of a La Vega and its municipalities, which include La Vega, Jarabacoa, Constanza and Jima Abajo.

Later on at 7:00 pm in the same auditórium, DREFF will screen the film Waste Land.

Filmed over nearly three years, Waste Land follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. Director Lucy Walker (Devil’s Playground, Blindsight and Countdown to Zero) and co-directors João Jardim and Karen Harley have great access to the entire process and, in the end, offer stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

Collaborators
The realization of DREFF 2012 has been made possible thanks to support and contributions from our collaborators:

Centro Cuesta Nacional (Arrecife), Banco de Reservas (Colibrí), Fundación Vida Azul, Panorama Verde, Odebrecht, Uepa.com, Uepa Radio, PUNTACANA Resort & Club, el Proyecto Nautilius, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Republic, Sueños de Colores (Dreams in Color), la Revista Flow (Flow Magazine), el Centro Cultural Perelló (Perelló Cultural Center), the Embassy of Spain in the Dominican Republic, , Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU) (Pedro Henríquez Ureña National University), the Ministry of Culture of the Dominican Republic, Clúster Turístico del Destino Puerto Plata (Tourism Cluster Destination Puerto Plata), la Universidad Católica Nordestana de San Francisco de Macorís (Catholic University Nordestana de San Francisco de Macorís), el Centro Cultural Narciso González (Narciso González Cultural Center), Centro León, CEDAF, Terra and RENAEPA, among others.

Related links:
www.drenvironmentalfilmfestival.org
www.environmentaldictionary.org
www.globoverdedominicano.org